WinCatalog.com News and Articles

LFM2.5-VL-3B: A Small Local AI Model That Beats Our Default Pick for Image Descriptions

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0300

Liquid AI has released LFM2.5-VL-3B, a lightweight vision-language model, and it is worth your attention if you use AI Bridge to generate descriptions and keywords for the images in your catalog.

It is a 3-billion-parameter vision model that outperforms models more than twice its size, and it runs remarkably fast. We tested it in the usual AI Bridge + LM Studio setup, and at 4-bit quantization (Q4_K_M) it beat Gemma 4, the model we currently recommend as the default, on both description quality and speed.

WinCatalog 2026.3.1: LM Studio Bionic Support, Translation Fixes

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0300

WinCatalog 2026.3.1 is a maintenance release. AI Bridge now works with Bionic, the new app from LM Studio, and we went back over the translations that came with 2026.3.

AI Bridge works with Bionic

LM Studio has a new app called Bionic. AI Bridge now finds it and uses it the same way it uses LM Studio (Classic), including on machines where Bionic is the only one installed.

Nothing changes in the settings. Bionic runs on the same engine as LM Studio, with the same downloaded models and the same local server on port 1234, so there was no reason to make it a separate provider. The entry in AI Bridge settings is now called LM Studio / Bionic and covers both.

WinCatalog 2026.3 Release: GPS Photo Search, Path Filter, and One-Click Duplicate Selection

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0300

Hello, we’re glad to announce WinCatalog 2026.3. The main new feature this time is GPS search: WinCatalog reads the coordinates stored in your photos and lets you find pictures by where they were taken, with no internet connection required. This update also adds a path filter to the search options, one-click selection commands for duplicate cleanup, and a long list of scanning and deletion fixes.

Here’s what changed.

WinCatalog 2026.2 Release

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0300

Hello, we’re glad to announce WinCatalog 2026.2. This is a big update for our disk catalog software: a 5-star rating system, custom columns you build yourself, a completely new keyboard shortcut engine, and a full move to 64-bit. There’s also a long list of speed and stability work under the hood.

If you organize a large media or backup collection, a few of these are worth the upgrade on their own. Here’s what changed.

Difference between Personal and Professional license types

Mon, 18 May 2026 11:17:49 +0000

Both types of licenses include the same features and allow installation on any number of computers per a license, but Personal license is restricted to non-commercial or educational use, only whereas Professional / Business license includes all types of use, including enterprise, professional and managed IT, non-profit and government use, plus priority technical and maintenance support.

In other words, if you plan to use WinCatalog at home, it is enough to buy a personal license. But if you want to use it at work or for your business, you should buy a professional license.

WinCatalog 2026.1.1 Release

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0300

WinCatalog 2026.1.1 is available now. We focused this update on scan reliability, fixing window focus bugs, and tuning the AI Bridge.

Better Scan Error Reporting

Unexpected errors during long scans—like access denials or missing system folders—used to trigger partial scan warnings that weren’t always useful. We cleaned this up:

WinCatalog skips well-known system folders entirely, eliminating spurious partial scan warnings.
Scanning and syncing now share the same folder-listing error logic. WinCatalog downgrades race conditions (like a temporary file being deleted while scanning) to warnings instead of failing the folder parse entirely.
You can toggle a new “Show errors after scan” checkbox directly from the error dialog.
We added a -ScanErrors [Show|Skip|Default] command-line flag so you can suppress or show the error dialog in batch scripts.

AI Bridge Tuning

WinCatalog 2026 is Here: AI-Powered Image Descriptions, eComic and Disk Image Scanning, Font Files Thumbnails, 3D Model Support, and More

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0300

Hello, we’re glad to announce a new major update, WinCatalog 2026. The version number is 2026.1.

This release adds AI-powered image analysis, support for several new file types, and improvements based on user feedback.

AI-powered image descriptions with AI Bridge

WinCatalog 2026 introduces AI Bridge, a companion tool that uses a local AI model running on your computer to analyze image thumbnails already stored in your catalog. For each image, AI Bridge generates a short caption describing the scene, a set of keywords, a category label, and a shot type (close-up, medium shot, etc.).

WinCatalog 2024.16 Release

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0300

Hello, we are pleased to announce the release of WinCatalog 2024.16, bringing new productivity features, improved search functionality, and enhanced system reliability.

New Keyboard Shortcuts for Tab Management

Working with multiple tabs is now more convenient with newly added keyboard shortcuts. Press CTRL+W or CTRL+F4 to close the current tab, CTRL+SHIFT+W or CTRL+SHIFT+F4 to close all tabs at once (except the last main tab), and CTRL+T to open a new Catalog tab. These shortcuts align with common browser conventions, making tab navigation more intuitive and efficient.

WinCatalog 2024.15 Release

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0300

Hello, we are pleased to announce the release of WinCatalog 2024.15, bringing improvements to scanning reliability, long path support, and overall system stability.

Enhanced Scanning Stability

The stability of interaction with system components like File Explorer has been significantly improved. WinCatalog now handles system-level operations more reliably, reducing potential conflicts and ensuring smoother cataloging operations even during intensive scanning sessions.

More Robust MediaInfo Processing

The MediaInfo module has been strengthened to handle incorrect shell thumbnails correctly (if the option to grab system thumbnails is selected). This improvement ensures that WinCatalog can accurately extract and display media information even when encountering problematic or malformed thumbnail data, preventing potential scanning interruptions.

WinCatalog Turns 24: Two Decades of Trusted Disk Catalog Software

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 09:00:00 +0300

Today we celebrate a remarkable milestone — 24 years since WinCatalog first became the trusted disk catalog software for organizing digital collections around the world!

Over these 24 years, we’ve evolved from a simple file organizer into a comprehensive solution that helps thousands of users manage everything from personal photo libraries to massive business archives. What started as a tool for organizing floppy disks and CD collections has grown into powerful disk catalog software capable of indexing terabytes of files across countless external drives, NAS devices, and network locations.